by Nina Smith
The big guy next to Hippy snarled and thumped on the glass that separated the cabin from the driver. Hippy reached across and plucked Fluffy Ducky off Tony’s face, but held him just about two inches away to keep the man cowed. “I’m not a little girl.” She gave him her most ferocious scowl.
The car slowed to a halt.
“You two, get out.” Poppy jerked her head at the door.
The big guys got out of the car.
Poppy reached across and locked the doors. Then she extended one leg and thumped the floor twice. The car moved off again. “Alright Hippy, put the spider away.”
Hippy tucked Fluffy Ducky safely away.
Tony said a whole string of bad words.
Hippy’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “Do rabbits do that kind of thing over here?”
Tony spluttered.
“There,” Poppy said, when he subsided. “Now we’re on more even terms, perhaps we can all be a little bit more friendly.”
“You’re going to regret this.” Tony made a nasty face at both Pierus and Hippy. “And you two as well. Those are my good friends you left back there!”
“They’re big boys, they’ll be fine.” Poppy handed a gun to Hippy. “Here love, hold this. No not like that, that’s where the bullet comes out. Point it at Tony–that’s it–and don’t squeeze the trigger unless I tell you to.”
“Which bit’s the trigger?”
“Don’t give it to her, she’s psycho!” Tony yelled.
Hippy broke into a big grin. “Really? That’s almost the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.” She wiped a tear from one eye.
Tony dropped his face in his hands. “I knew it was gonna be one of those days. Alright Praeconius, what do you want?”
“You off my back would be a good start.” Poppy took a slim metal file out of her pocket and started scraping dirt from underneath her nails. “I mean really, I’m doing my very best to be a serious archaeologist here, but it’s very difficult when you and your goons overreact at every little setback.”
Tony scoffed. “You’re not a serious archaeologist, you’re a thief!”
“I would be a serious archaeologist if you’d get off my back, give me the space to pay you your money back and move on!”
“I knew it,” Pierus said between clenched teeth. “I knew you weren’t to be trusted.”
“You think?” Tony glared at all of them.
“Shut up, or I’ll put you out of the car too, and keep your friend,” Poppy said.
Pierus turned bright red. Then he went white. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I’m doing the fandango with organised crime here, you want to try me? Now shut up, I’m trying to close a deal.” Poppy returned her attention to her nails.
“Seriously, who is this guy?” Tony said.
“Never you mind. Now here’s the deal, Tony. Pandora’s Box was gone, but we have a lead on who took it. I’m going to need time to chase that up and some cash to cover expenses. Not a lot mind, but you understand it’ll all be worth it in the end.”
“You’re crazy,” Tony said. “You think I’m going to give you more money and let you run off with the box?”
“I don’t care what you think. I’m sure you don’t want me to teach young Hippy here how to shoot that gun, do you?”
“Oh!” Hippy exclaimed. “I think I found the trigger!”
“Alright, alright!” Tony put his hands up. “But you got a week, alright? And then I’m coming to check up. And you’d better not have these two jokers with you when I get there, either.”
“Good man.” Poppy stuck out her hand and the two shook. “Are we in Athens yet?” She peered out of the window.
“What makes you think that’s where we’re going?”
“That’s where you always go. Ah, good. Let us out here.”
Tony leaned forward, giving Hippy a wide berth. He knocked on the glass. The car slowed to a halt.
Poppy unlocked the doors and pushed them open. “Come on team.”
“One week Praeconius!” Tony yelled.
Poppy slammed the door shut.
Hippy stared all around her with big eyes while the car pulled away. More cars rushed past on a big, wide road. Tall, dirty buildings loomed over them, their rows of windows climbing up and streaming across for miles. In, around and behind them crowded far more ancient buildings, most crumbling and in ruins. People swarmed everywhere. Most of them stared at her. She moved closer to Pierus.
Pierus put an arm around her shoulder and shook his head. “This is Athens?”
“You sound disappointed. What’s the matter, you two never been in a city before?”
“I was here briefly, three thousand years ago.” Pierus set off after Poppy when she strode off down the path. Hippy had to run to keep up.
“Oh yes, I forgot, you’re from another world, blah, blah, blah. Hippy don’t look so frightened.”
“Fairies tend to be isolated,” Pierus said. “I’d wager she’s never even seen Shadow City.”
“Yes I have,” Hippy said. “I went there once with my Dad and Ishtar and all my brothers to see a play about war at the Shadow Theatre. It was a good play. There were fairies in it. And their costumes were shiny.”
“Where’s Shadow City then?” Poppy turned a corner and headed along a row of shops and cafes, skirting tables and chairs and people drinking from little white cups.
“East of the mountains, beyond the forest,” Hippy said.
“Which mountains? The Pindus?”
“No. The Great Western Peak of Impossible Doom. But then, everything’s East of that except the Darkness.”
Poppy halted in the middle of the footpath, turned around and glared at them over her glasses. “There’s no such place.”
“How narrow human minds are,” Pierus said.
Poppy made a noise of disgust. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
“Almost where?” Hippy broke away from Pierus and trotted along next to her. “Where are we going? Will there be food there?”
“The Library. And no, you’ll have to wait till later.” Poppy turned into a street that was much wider and emptier than the others and went up a set of white stone stairs that curved up to a huge building fronted by six enormous stone pillars.
Hippy followed her, struck dumb by the size of the building. Pierus, not far behind, muttered to himself about modern architecture.
Inside it was dark and much cooler. Poppy hurried them past a long desk and deep, deep into the shadowy recesses of the library, until they reached a shelf packed with books so old and dusty Hippy had a sneezing fit.
There Poppy stopped and looked Pierus square in the eye. “I’m not stupid,” she said. “I know you’re linked to Pandora’s Box, I just don’t know how. I don’t believe in fairies or vampires, but the legends I read mentioned someone named Pierus. That’s the only reason I didn’t leave you underground. I want to know the truth. Who are you?”
“Why?” Pierus ran his finger along the spine of a book. “So you can steal the Apple from under my nose and sell it to your friend Tony?”
“Look, that’s all very complicated.” Poppy straightened her glasses. “But believe you me, I have no intention of letting Tony anywhere near anything so valuable.”
“You have someone who’ll pay more?”
Poppy folded her arms. “None of your business.”
“Oh, but it is, young woman.” Pierus lifted a dusty mirror from the end of a bookshelf, laid it on the nearest table and polished it with his sleeve. “What you call Pandora’s Box is nothing. What it held, the Apple of Chaos, is everything. We need it.”
“What for?”
“To drive out the vamps.” Hippy slumped down in the chair next to Pierus and put her head in her hands. Now everything was quiet, the images she’d turned her back on such a short time ago poured into her mind. “When we left, they’d set my village on fire. There were so many of them. They filled the night for as far as I could see.”
Po
ppy leaned over, her balled fists resting on the table. “Hippy I can see you think you’re telling the truth, but there is no such thing as vampires.”
“Of course there are. I’ve killed like a hundred in the last year alone.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re such a little thing, you couldn’t kill anybody.”
Pierus chuckled. “Never underestimate a Bloody Fairy, my dear. They live for war. Now come here. Look into this mirror.” He passed his hand over it.
“Why?” Poppy leaned over to look in. Her eyes widened.
“Witness, young woman, the other side of your world. The reflection humans never see. What you see is our world, the world of Shadow, where all your nightmares were once given life.”
Poppy stared, transfixed.
Hippy closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears to block out the sounds of home: the sounds of fairies and vampires at war.
CHAPTER NINE
“So let me get this straight.” Poppy pushed her glasses up on her nose. A strand of hair had escaped from her coif and her glasses were crooked. The library around them was deserted and silent. “You’re a real life, honest to God muse. Your job is to inspire people.”
“Correct.” Pierus sat opposite her, one hand splayed on the table, the other turning the pages of a book he paid no attention to.
“And she’s a fairy.”
“A Bloody Fairy,” Hippy interrupted.
“How? What makes you a Bloody Fairy?”
“That’s her clan,” Pierus said.
“So when you said a freaking fairy got to the box first, you were actually being quite literal.”
“Yeah.” Hippy scowled. “I hate Freakin Fairies.”
Poppy ran an agitated hand through her hair. “You understand this is a lot for me to take in. Were those other men really vampires?”
“One of them was Rustam Badora, king of the vampires,” Pierus said. “Oldest and strongest of them all. He will wreak havoc on your world if we cannot find the Apple of Chaos and stop him.”
Poppy said several bad words, put her face in her hands and rubbed her temples. “I’m in over my head here.”
“On the contrary my dear, you are far better equipped to help us than most humans.”
Poppy took her hands away from her face. Her voice had a sharp edge. “What makes you think I’m going to help you?”
A smile played around the edges of Pierus’s mouth. His words held more than a tinge of arrogance. “I am the king of the muses. I’ve been watching and inspiring humans for three thousand years. You are like open books to me. You can hide nothing.”
Poppy’s cheeks flamed bright red, but she said nothing.
“I knew your type the moment I saw you,” Pierus continued. “You’re a liar. A cheat, a manipulator and a liar.”
Hippy’s eyes widened. She moved closer to Pierus, but Poppy had all her attention. She couldn’t see any of what he was talking about. And Fluffy Ducky liked her.
Poppy slumped back in her chair. “I suppose I should defend myself.”
“I’m not judging you,” Pierus said. “On reflection, you may be very useful. But I must know everything you know about what you call Pandora’s Box and why you’re searching for it. If you lie, I will know.”
“Just like that, huh?” Poppy got out of her chair and paced from shelf to shelf. “Just like that, I find out there’s a whole other world full of nightmares, you’re from it, and I’m supposed to divulge all my deep dark secrets.”
“I could find out for myself,” Pierus said. “But you wouldn’t find it a pleasant experience.”
Poppy looked at him askance. “I don’t think I want to know about that.”
“Then talk. We’re running out of time. The moment darkness falls the vampires will begin their reign of terror.”
Hippy glanced up at the high windows, but it was hard to tell from those what time of day it was. Her stomach growled. She moved up and down the shelves, watching for people who might be listening. Poppy’s voice floated after her.
“I became acquainted with an elderly gentleman some time ago,” Poppy said. “Originally the whole point was to gain his trust and–er–relieve him of some of his considerable fortune.” She cleared her throat. “Not all of it, you understand, but I had some debts to clear and to be honest he could afford it. Now this gentleman had an extensive library and was very knowledgeable about ancient history, so we ended up having some rather interesting conversations. I mean really, when it came down to it, I rather liked him. I try to avoid that, but there it is.”
Hippy wandered back towards the table. “Why did you avoid liking him?”
“Because she was going to cheat him of his money, my dear,” Pierus said. “Keep up.”
Poppy scowled. “Only a little of it. Anyway, he had a theory about Pandora’s Box. He used to say he thought the story was an allegory for something that existed, something that had magic powers. He was a bit whacky that way. At least I thought he was a bit whacky, until–” she winced. “Well, it all went a bit pear-shaped, didn’t it? Some random thugs came and smashed up the house. At first I thought they were for me, but they were all over him. Right before they came in he gave me this book and told me to hide it and get out if I could. So I did. I got out of the house and I called the cops.”
“And you never went back, naturally.” Pierus sounded amused.
“Not once I found out what was in the book.” Poppy reached into her pack and brought out a battered volume. She opened it up and slid it across the table.
Hippy went over to the desk to see.
Inside the book was a sheet of paper so old it was almost crumbling. On it was etched a faded map, on which notes were made in letters Hippy couldn’t for the life of her read. Besides, she was hungry. She lost interest and went to poke at a spider web on a top shelf in case there were any dead flies in it for Fluffy Ducky.
Pierus, however, studied the map intently. “These are the caves we were just in.”
“Damn right they are,” Poppy said. “I figured all that out, but not in time to clear my debts. So naturally Tony came looking for me and I had to promise to cut him in to get him off my back.”
“And what was your real plan?”
“Get the box and disappear. Set myself up for life.”
“You’re lying.”
Poppy sighed. “Look, I have a son, okay? He’s very young and there are a lot of people out there who’d use him against me if they knew. I was going to make sure he was safe. Then I was going to disappear and set myself up for life.”
Pierus seemed satisfied with this. “Tell me about the people who attacked your elderly gentleman.”
Poppy shrugged. “Garden variety thugs, I thought. Long-haired louts.”
“Did you notice anything else about them?”
“They did seem a trifle on the short side. And vicious.”
“Hippy,” Pierus said.
Hippy came back to the table.
“Short and vicious,” Pierus said. “I’d say that was a good description of a fairy, wouldn’t you?”
“Vicious, yes, but I wouldn’t call us short. I’d call you unnecessarily tall.” She scowled. “I’m hungry. So is Fluffy Ducky.”
“Hippy take another look at this map.” Pierus pointed to an illegible scrawl in one corner. “Do you recognise this?”
Hippy’s stomach growled again. “No.”
A note of impatience entered Pierus’s voice. “You haven’t even looked. I need to know if this map was made by a Freakin Fairy.”
Hippy took a pinch of fairy dust and threw it on the map.
Pierus jumped back and said a bad word. “What did you do that for?”
The paper sparkled. It didn’t crumble.
“Yes, the map was made by a Freakin Fairy.”
“How can you tell?” Poppy reached for the paper.
Pierus caught her wrist. “Don’t touch, unless you want to lose your fingers.”
Hippy shook the dust
off the map and put it back in the book, which she closed and thrust at Poppy. “Please can we go and have something to eat now?”
“Sure.” Poppy didn’t sound convinced. Her eyes were glued to the table, where every bit of wood hit by fairy dust crumbled to fine white ash, leaving ragged holes in the surface.
“Fairies,” Pierus said. “Like I said, vicious. And short.”
The sun sank rapidly outside the windows of a dingy cafe. Hippy was in a much better mood, having consumed two of something called a burger and a very big, thick, milky drink, all under Poppy’s bemused gaze. Pierus had eaten very little. Maybe that was why he was always in such a bad mood, Hippy thought. He was permanently hungry. “What now?” she said.
“I suppose if we find the Freakin Fairies, we find the box,” Poppy said.
“There’s not much point in finding the box.” Pierus toyed with a glass.
“What?” Poppy wiped her fingers on a napkin and pushed her plate away from her.
“The box was nothing more than a box. It’s what was in the box that’s important. It’s the Apple of Chaos we need to find.”
“See, I told you my story,” Poppy said. “You still haven’t told me what this Apple of Chaos actually is.”
“All in good time.” Pierus rose to his feet. “Come along now.” He strode out of the cafe.
Hippy and Poppy followed. The evening air was sultry with heat and petrol fumes. Electric lights flickered on up and down the busy road.
Poppy linked her arm with Hippy’s. “How do you keep from knocking his teeth out?”
Hippy was taken aback. “He’s the muse king. I wouldn’t dare.”
“Is there a fairy king?”
Hippy giggled. “No.”
“Why not?”
“If anyone tried to be our king we’d probably put a sack over their head and hang them from the fortifications by their toes. The elders would never stand for it.”
“But you’re scared of this muse king?”
Hippy scoffed. “Scared? Of a muse?”
“You’re scared of knocking his teeth out.”
Hippy frowned. The conversation seemed to be going in a circle, so she changed the subject. “How old is your son?”